Skeleton Dance

Joly frowned at him. “What do you mean, you assume so? Don't you remember being struck?'

'No.'

'But it may be important. Perhaps if you try to reconstruct—'

'Lucien, let me explain something to you. When people say they remember the blow that knocked them out they're either making it up or kidding themselves. A knockout blow is a concussion, and a concussion is an interruption of cortical electric activity that induces a retrograde amnesia which ninety-nine times out of a hundred obliterates any memory of the precipitating trauma and more often than not the events immediately preceding. Period, fini, end of discussion, subject closed, all right?'

'I . . .'

Julie smiled at the startled Joly. “He's a little touchy on the subject of concussions today.'

'I don't wonder,” Joly said peaceably. “All right, then, let's go over the rest of what we know, or think we know, one more time.” He crossed his long, thin legs, first adjusting the trouser-crease, and propped his gold- rimmed cup and saucer on his knee. “Now. As Julie points out, we can tentatively assume that the person who attacked you and removed the bones learned where they were from someone who was present at the staff meeting when you announced their location.'

'I didn't announce it, I just—'

'Second, I think we can proceed on the assumption that the bones were taken—and taken so quickly—in order to prevent your examining them, inasmuch as you yourself told them you would be doing so this afternoon.'

Gideon was stretched out nearly supine in his chair, staring at his shoes. “This is really making me feel great, Lucien.” He tapped his temple with a finger. “Really smart, you know?'

'Third, we can probably assume that the purpose of removing them was to prevent the possibility of your finding evidence of tuberculosis on the ribs and thus provisionally identifying the remains as Jean Bousquet's. We can assume this because you yourself told—'

Gideon waved a hand at him. “I know, I know. Boy, you really like to rub it in, don't you?'

'All right, then,” Joly said, “given that much—'

Julie put down her tea. “May I say something, Lucien? Wouldn't it make just as much sense to assume that whoever took the bones did it to prevent Gideon from finding out it wasn't Bousquet?'

Joly frowned at her over the rim of his cup. “Wasn't Bousquet?'

'Well, say Gideon had looked at them and those marks on the ribs weren't there, it would mean—or at least it might mean—that it wasn't Bousquet at all, but someone else. And maybe somebody didn't want you to know that. Isn't that possible?'

'I suppose—'

'Possible but not probable,” Gideon said. “I know these people; they think like scientists. They know perfectly well that whereas finding periostitis would be a positive sign of the disease and therefore a strong indicator that the bones are Bousquet's, not finding it wouldn't prove anything one way or the other—particularly because t.b. is a rare disease nowadays, and almost half of the very few people who do get it never develop those lesions anyway.'

'Yes,” Julie said, “but do the people at the institute know that?'

'They do now,” Gideon said miserably. “That's another thing I happened to mention this morning.'

'Considering that you spent only forty minutes with them,” Joly observed, “you managed to impart a great deal of useful information.'

Gideon slouched deeper into the armchair.

Julie poured more tea for the three of them, adding the sugar that Gideon asked for to settle his uneasy stomach. “Gideon, which one do you think was behind it? Any idea?'

'Not a clue.'

'But obviously, one of them must know something about Bousquet's history that he wasn't telling.'

'I think they all know something they weren't telling. Beaupierre almost gave it away at one point, but they jumped all over him, and he shut up like a clam, and so did everybody else.'

'And you believe they were protecting a member of the group, one of their own,” Joly said.

Gideon nodded. “Yes. Unless I'm way off-base, I think the ‘co-worker’ you told me about, the one that Bousquet had his “unpleasantness” with, is one of them. And they all banded together to protect whoever it is.'

'Which inescapably leads us to wonder if this unnamed person may have murdered Bousquet over this unnamed unpleasantness?'

It was, of course, the question that had been on Gideon's mind all afternoon, ever since he'd come to on the floor of the morgue, and he'd yet to reach an answer. “Lucien, I just don't know. Anything I'd say would be a guess.'

'Then guess.'

'All right, my guess is no. Or if one of them actually did—which is hard for me to make myself take seriously—I don't think that's what it is that the others know. I got the feeling that what they know is merely that he or she had some kind of trouble with Bousquet and they're worried that it's going to make difficulties for him, or her, with the police. With you. That's all.'

'If that's all,” Julie said hotly, “why did they steal the bones and almost kill you doing it? Is that supposed to make things less difficult with the police?'

'I don't know that either.'